(a) Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to digital video transmission systems and, more particularly, to a system and method of transmitting, receiving and displaying advertisements via a digital video transmission system.
(b) Description of Related Art
The use of video-based advertising is growing rapidly, which is due, in part, to the large number of consumers that now have access to the Internet. To capitalize on this growth, many Internet service providers (ISPs) sell advertising space (i.e., graphic blocks) on their home page display, through which customers must navigate when connecting to the Internet. Similarly, many businesses profit from selling advertising space on their webpages to other companies that offer complementary or related products and services.
Television distribution systems have also expanded the use of video-based advertising. For example, many cable television service providers sell advertising space in their electronic program guide display. These program guides are typically a grid-based display having vertical columns representing time blocks, rows representing individual channels, and individual cells which represent video programs. Each video program occupies one or more cells in a given row and may be represented using various graphic and textual information that is descriptive of the programs. Viewers access the program guide via a dedicated channel and may spend a significant amount of time viewing the guide to plan their future viewing and/or to select a currently running program.
The advertising spaces provided within the conventional video-based systems discussed above are typically sold as graphic blocks or banners. These advertising spaces may be strategically arranged within the display and may include still color images, textual information, and limited animation. Additionally, a large number of advertisements may be scheduled to share a limited number of available spaces for different lengths of time. Thus, if a user views the display for a sufficient amount of time, some or all of the advertisements may be seen cycling periodically through predetermined locations.
In the above-described conventional video-based systems, the flexibility of the advertisement scheduling is very limited because the scheduling function is performed exclusively at the system headend or transmitting station. Thus, any changes in the display of advertisements (e.g., display location, advertisement content, etc.) must be transmitted in real time from the system headend to the receiver stations of individual users. As a result, all users are shown the same advertisements at the same time regardless of their personal preferences, location, or time zone. Furthermore, the sophistication of the advertisements is constrained by the lowest level of technology currently employed within the group of users. For example, although it may be feasible to transmit advertisements including high resolution animation from the system headend, such sophisticated advertisements may nevertheless not be transmitted because one or more users may have receiver stations that are not capable of processing these sophisticated advertisements.